


the dragon who fell into the nokken's bog

by foxtoveni



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Attempt at Humor, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Body Horror, Dragon Born Keith, Fluff, Folklore, Gay Keith (Voltron), M/M, Mutual Pining, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Nokken Lance, also mentions of death and drowning, but - Freeform, i suck at slow burn bc i'm inpatient, i'd like to say this might be slow burn, idk join me on this adventure, if they appear, im too soft to write constant angst about these two they deserve happiness, maybe a lil bit of angst but nothing bad, other characters to be tagged - Freeform, probs semi-slow burn, they might tho idk, warning: blood and injuries, where am i going with this fic??
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-09 09:32:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12885036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxtoveni/pseuds/foxtoveni
Summary: In search for his missing brother, Dragon Born Keith sets out on a journey to find his only living familiar left despite his lack of knowledge of life beyond the woods and runs into a predicament that could be his deathbed. Keith's desperate escape leads him to unknown territory, a bog, and makes a terrifying discovery.





	1. the nokken's bog

**Author's Note:**

> will I ever stop making new fics when I need to finish like five more? the answer is no.

Dragon Borns were despised creatures. A hybrid between a terrifying scaled beast and a weak, vulnerable human. From these two races, a different kin was conceived. That of a half-breed creature, varying in appearances but one thing was clear, and that is that they were indeed the humanoid child of a forbidden romance, frowned upon by everyone but accepted by some.

 

These Dragon Borns weren’t able to shift into a mighty dragon themselves like their ancestors, but all had touches of a dragon’s aspect on their human bodies; horns, wings, tails, scales, sharp teeth.

 

Keith fell into the latter category. Being the son of a dragon and a human, he couldn’t turn into a scaled beast like his deceased mother, but he carried the aspects of one on his young face. Two elegant, slightly back-curved red horns sprouted from the top of his head stopping at medium length, deep violet eyes hinted with stars in them like a gold coin’s sparkle with the pupil of a dragon’s, and right cheekbone littered in a splotch of reddish scales like freckles.

 

To his back he had two large red wings, but no tail. He inherited all the looks from his mother, his long gone father used to say, and he could only take his word for it since Keith never met his mother. She was being hunted down, was how the story went, and in order to protect her husband and children she gave her life. What was of her remains Keith never found out nor did his older brother. After their father’s death from a hunting incident, only Shiro, his older brother was left of his family.

 

The day he found his brother missing Keith didn’t know what to do. He was the only other child of their old man, and Shiro much like himself had no friends or any other family. His dad’s paranoia consumed him to the core and lead him to isolate them due fear of losing what he had left, so Keith and his older brother lived their entire lives in the non-frequented part of the woods. The cabin looked ransacked that day, leading Keith to believe his brother was kidnapped, despite the lack of humans in this neck of the woods.

 

Inexperienced and new to the world beyond the lush, Keith left the only home he knew and set out on a search for his missing brother. He was trained in combat, capable of magic and naturally born with fire abilities, so the young dragon born was confident he’d make it out there while blindly throwing darts as to where could his brother be.

 

Who knew that being careless would cause him a dangerous predicament? Definitely not him. Keith wore a large extravagant array of clothes, something to keep his body warm from the winter cold. It was all flaunting red, one shoulder wrapped in white fur and the other in a black fur, black tattered gloves that were just a cloth wrapped around his hands and arms, a long coat, so it’s not like he wasn’t bound to _not_ stand out, his wings weren’t helpful either.

 

Keith did stick to the shadows, however. Only venturing into the villages late at night, traversing the woods during the day, and flying high up into the sky where no mere human could reach unless they were practiced in magic. So he was being careful, as careful as he can be in such a harrowing situation, but he’s got nobody else to blame but himself really.

 

Not hiding the blood or carcasses very well of some farmer’s livestock might’ve given away that there was an hungry creature in their midst, and more villages over having the same situation led the people to connect the dots of a travelling carnivore, and with members missing of their livestock the humans went to sought out whatever it was that was eating their sheep, cows and pigs.

 

Keith didn’t know about that at the time when he preyed upon an inconspicuous sheep. The moment he lunged forward to the sleeping thing with his knife at the ready, he was ambushed with weapons by the villagers. By the look on their faces he can tell they were expecting a wolf or maybe a bear, not the hybrid of a human and dragon.

 

When the humans, three farmers and a hunter, were done processing what stood in front of them they lunged their attacks. One of the spears poked into Keith’s side and dug in, the other tore his wing pretty badly, but not enough to render him flightless. He got the chance to snap his fingers and spark a flame at the palm of his hand, slamming it down to the snowy ground to burst up a barrier of fire from the ground around him to ward off the attackers in order to buy him time. He got airborne easily, wings flaring out and flapping the air down in violent gusts. As successful as his plan seemed to be, it had a big flaw due one wing.

 

Being torn on one of them made his speed falter, and therefore gave the people on the ground big windows of opportunity to toss their spears as the others fetched arrows. In that span of time Keith casted fireballs down at the villagers attacking and as much as it hit them, their arrows also hit him.

 

He had no time to dislodge the prickly stick from his left shoulder and thigh, so he only forced himself to flap his wings faster and disappear above the clouds before they could get more weapons stuck in him or even a damn cannon ball too.

 

This is how he wound up getting lost.

 

It was almost dawn, but to the place he’s flung himself into remained ominously dark. He noticed right away the amount of fog that circled him, only making a barely visible path for himself thanks to the weakened wings casting it away. Alarms were going off in his head to the strange place he’s travelling through, but most of the dragon’s senses were numb and concentrated on the hunger, pain and exhaustion, stomach flipping in the most uncomfortable of ways, body ached with pain and eyelids falling heavy with sleep.

 

Keith’s sure the amount of exhaustion his body felt that led to this was the blood loss from the wound on his side, the spear having been jabbed into him pretty deep. It wasn’t long until his body gave up and Keith crashed into the bog below, colliding with rotten wood and sticky moss and dead plants of all sorts. The water wasn’t all that deep, body skidding through it without sinking too much under it.

 

The crash landing halted, body wrecked with pain and slowing sinking under as he neared the open waters, Keith made no attempts to move or call for help. All he wanted was to rest, but his body and brain didn't allow him to, so despite the complaints of his beaten body he tried to swim back to land.

 

He _attempted._ He was brought right back into the water after having only clutched some upper ground by some underwater animal biting down on his ankle, flailing back with intent to go back to it’s home with Keith as it’s prey. So he gurgled a noise and twisted his body around, allowing himself to fall under to the thing. Whatever it was, it moved too fast for him to understand what the shadowy being is. That didn’t matter though, what did matter was fighting for his life yet again as his lungs burned with half-sucked in air and half-sucked in bog water.

 

So as the unknown animal sunk them further into the water, red blood swarming around from the other's wounds, Keith slunk out his knife and prepared himself for whatever attack may this thing lash out at him when he attacked. He just hopes he can get out of this mess before he drowns, his lungs were already flipping in his chest and crying out, so he works fast and takes a swing at the thing.

 

The slimy-looking beast screeches once the blunt part of the knife made contact, releasing Keith’s ankle to take a bite at the retreating hand, and quickly brings the knife back around to prevent any further attempts at snapping to successfully cut open one of its eyes, but the bog beast refused to give up that easily.

 

He’s not sure for how little or long he wrestled with the slimy thing, all he knows is that he was drowning and fading in and out of consciousness and that terrifying, aquatic screech in the distance that was not even close to the same species from the source of his attacker, for even it looked up in panic and fled as quick as it came, abandoning what once was it’s prey. The exhaustion crashes back on Keith, body floating idly in the green but surprisingly clear water, and through lidded eyes, Keith saw it in it.

 

A beautiful, pale white horse with striking blue eyes. It had pushed through a large amount of sphagnum moss rooted to the water floor and galloped through the water with it’s glorious white mane and tail flowing like fog in the mountains, mesmerizing Keith’s numb brain. He was sinking to the bottom now, the strain of his held breath giving out to suck in water instead, bubbles flaring from throat and nose with a weak flame lighting in his Adam's Apple. He couldn't take his eyes off the creature, as it swam closer and closer. It did occur to him that this wasn’t natural, a horse underneath the water swimming, and possibly the source of the hellish screech that made the other thing flee.

 

Whatever this thing was made it even more evident that it wasn’t ‘natural’. When it got close enough to the warm-blooded dragon born, the features on it shifted to a horrific display of grotesqueness. It’s mouth grew to an open-mouthed grin, flaunting off arrays of sharp teeth, blue eyes turning white and sinking deeper into their sockets like a decaying skull, skin on it's long legs dripping and clinging like rotten flesh, jaw snapping open and body lunging forward at top speed.

 

The last few feet were closing in. Keith did nothing but watch as it violently swam to him, and in turn he let himself to drift off into slumber against the bog’s squirming ground.


	2. you're making friends with the fireflies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The Neck, Nicor, Nixie or Nokken are shapeshifting Water Spirits in Germanic Mythology and Folklore who usually appear in forms of other creatures..” Keith recited, enthralled by the new beast’s information in his formerly limited world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what's this??? an update that didn't take me a butt load of time to post?? what is this sorcery???

For what it must’ve been hours ago, where Keith had sunk to the slimy bottom of the bog, he now awoke to a warm bed and the aroma of a brew being cooked. For a split second upon awaking he thought he must’ve dreamed what happened earlier today once he recollected himself, but his theory was proven wrong once his disoriented eyes fix on the inside of the cabin he was in.

 

Keith never checks into any place to spend the night, nor does he break in into seemingly-abandoned or vacant cabins randomly strewn about in the woods. Not only that, but he was all patched up and in far less exhaustion and pain unlike earlier when he felt like death.

 

Speaking of death, shouldn’t that be his whole bodily situation right now? He was attacked, crashed to the bottom of a bog, and to top it of targeted by slimy animal and then a water horse with a nightmarish grin. With that latter alone, Keith was sure he’d be dead, but that wasn’t what it appeared to be.

 

Here he was, lying on a comfortable bed in a warm cabin belonging to who-knows-who, all patched up from his wounds and surprisingly clean from having crashed through a clusterfuck of mud, moss and whatever else resided in the bog. Half of him was telling him to climb out the closest window to escape whoever just pulled him out of what would’ve been his watery grave, but the other half of him urged him on to stay to thank his rescuer. Why would the one who saved his life be evil, when they could’ve just easily killed him while unconscious? And more importantly, while being the prey of that water horse creature.

 

Reluctantly, Keith pushed himself off the bed. He was still in his original attire, but with the heavier cloths off and set aside on a chair, and with quick inspection of his arms he can see that whoever was trying to make him sleep more comfortable tried to rid him of his gloves but gave up once they realized the tangled mess of the cloth was too much for them to want to deal with. He appreciates the gesture, though.

 

Keith felt smaller just being in his fitting trousers and shirt. Not in the it-made-him-look-tougher sense, but in the literal it-made-him-feel-taller sense, because no matter what, Keith always seemed to be shorter than everybody else.

 

His bare feet gently padded the floor when he let his legs swing over the edge, and after a moment’s contemplation then Keith pushed himself off the edge. He stumbled for a second or two, his left ankle still stung with pain from the fishy beast’s bite, but got his bearings back with a relieved sigh, cramped wings stretched carefully and numb limbs rejoiced.

 

Now it was time to meet his mysterious rescuer, wherever they might be. After slipping back into his winter boots, Keith judged that by the smell of food, they must be at the kitchen or at least in the dining room. His first path was to the the latter, either way to go to the kitchen one would have to pass through it as it appeared.

 

The person wasn’t there when Keith got to the small neat area, a single round table lined with a light blue mantel and a porcelain vase in the middle, sprouted with flowers Keith’s never seen before. The table was settled by a square window overlooking the foggy bog that appeared luminous now; a soft, sinister bluish white making the place look as creepily magical as it feels. Maybe he didn’t notice it’s glow earlier due to being preoccupied with far more concerning things.

 

Pushing that aside for later wonders, Keith continued on to the kitchen instead. Upon entering there he sees his presumed rescuer. He was tall and tanned, with messy chestnut hair, clad in a white dress shirt with wide sleeves and a blue vest, skin-fitting brown trousers much like his own jet black ones, and worn boots folded at the knees. He was leaning in forward to the round pot in front of him hanging over the fireplace-looking natural stove, bubbling in whatever concoction was brewing and being stirred by the chef. (Who Keith would’ve assumed was human, but the pointed ears said otherwise.)

 

He was unaware to Keith’s presence, until the dragon born’s senses caught another whiff of the aroma from the soup and his stomach complained from hunger, glaring down at it his organs rumbled louder than ever, as if it could tell he was trying to be discrete.  
  
“Ah, you’re awake!”  
  
Keith heard the man chirp. His head snapped back up, eyes now narrowed as he inspected the stranger closely, “Uh, yeah, I guess.” Keith settles for saying, voice a little strained. It’s not that he felt at danger, but he didn’t feel easy either. “I’m sorry, who are you?”  
  
“You _guess?”_ The man chortles, teasing in good nature, he seemed to be the jokester type. He turns over rather abruptly, shying Keith a few steps back. “I should be asking _you_ that, actually,” he idly talks by, taking a wooden bowl on his free hand. “It’s not every day somebody comes crashing through the water in this part of the bog, y’know?” he scooped up the soup, served it on the bowl, and handed it to him.

 

Keith stared at the offered food as if the hand holding it had just sprouted two more. He’s being too trusting, because for all he knew this was poisoned, but Keith’s hunger was pretty bad right now so once he realized this was for him, he didn’t think twice before devouring it.

 

The rescuer looked slightly mortified, holding his hand back as if it had been personally offended or targeted as food. He looked pretty concerned too, “Don’t eat too fast, you’ll get sick.”  
  
“I feel like I haven’t eaten in forever, can you blame me?” Keith said through a mouthful of a chunk of meat between his sharp teeth, biting down on it he lets the free half flop back into the bowl, swallowing the other bit. The other gave a resigned sigh.

 

“You were out for two days, so it’d make sense why. Just try not to puke, okay?”  
  
He choked a little bit, “I was out for _two days?”_ granted, that wasn’t so bad but it still shocked Keith nonetheless.

 

“Yep. You were pretty beaten when I found you, your body needed the rest.”  
  
“I’m wasting time though,” Keith grunts, settling the now empty bowl on the counter. The stranger takes it, serving him another scoop.  
  
“For?” he inquired.

 

“That’s none of your concern.” Keith said bitterly, but thanked him for the second serving, and gobbled it up. “Now, can you finally tell me your name?”  
  
“I figure that’s none of your concern.” the other remarked, just as bitterly.

 

Okay. Keith admits that was harsh, but he’s got his reasons to be wary. Sighing, he apologizes, “I’m sorry,” he mumbled into the bowl, avoiding eye contact. “That was.. rude of me.” he sets the wooden thing back down, still carrying contents so he wasn’t finished, Keith observes the stranger mentally note, so he takes the liberty of serving himself up a scoop. He continued, voice less low-toned and more clear. “I’ve had a rough time. My brother disappeared, kidnapped I presume, by the state I found our cabin in, so I’ve been looking for him for weeks. To make up for my rudeness, my name’s Keith.”

 

The stranger nodded in understanding, a frown tugging at his features while he ate his soup with a spoon. “I’m.. sorry to hear about that. I should also apologize for my own rudeness-”  
  
Keith interrupts, “No. You were just giving me a taste of my own medicine.”

 

“..Yes. Anyways, as I was saying, I should apologize.” Lance lifted a hand up, wiggling his index finger to hush Keith, having attempted to protest. “Because that was rude of me too. We’re both strangers to one another, and it’s not like our world goes easy on beings like us. So we have our share of trust issues.” he explains, by his look hoping to ease up the awkward atmosphere that hung over them that Keith didn’t notice earlier. “So, let’s start over: I’m Lance, pleasure you meet you.”

 

“And Keith,” he repeats. “Lance. Pleasure’s all mine.”

 

“Now that introductions are out of the way, what happened to you? You literally came out of nowhere and crashed to the bottom of the bog.”  
  
Keith grimaced, recalling the time prior. “Ah, about that,” his voice lowered, embarrassed. “I was hunting for food and got ambushed. I guess that I didn’t hide the carcasses of my previous prey all too well, they found their dead livestock members, which leads to why I got attacked.” he slurped up the rest of his soup then munched down on the strange meat. It didn’t come to him until now that he’s never tried anything like this before, so he changed the subject, far more interested in knowing what he was currently dumping into his hungry body. “What animal is this meat of?”

The sudden change of conversation staggered Lance’s voice, the start of a remark or question dying in his throat the moment Keith had asked what they were eating. He raised his spoon, and Keith followed its lead, pausing at the side to point to the carcass of a slimy beast on the kitchen counter.

 

He immediately recognized the thing, or its species at least, as it happened to be the aquatic beast that bit on his ankle. It was a long gelatinous blob, grimy with a black hide and small stumps for fins. Its mouth was wide open, showing off its needle teeth with random proportions in length.

 

It had been half chopped away, but it seemed to have been killed by a bite on the back of what would be it’s neck. The perforation was deep with semi-big holes, the skin roughly torn and bleeding even now. Did Lance went toe-to-toe with another thing that preyed on this grotesque, but admittedly tasty, creature?

 

“Weblum meat.” Lance walked up to it, but payed attention to the sink instead to wash off his utensils. “Well, that’s the _aquatic_ cousin. They’re officially named Boglums.”  
  
“That’s an awfully cute name for what looks like to be prehistoric grandparents of starved piranhas.” Keith said with a little grudge, glaring at the carcass of the animal. He had enough of a bad time that day already, so the cherry on top was being attacked by this thing that came like a bat out of hell. So safe to say he’s not too fond of them.

 

“You tell ‘em.”

 

Lance commented offhandedly, chuckling to himself, sleeves pulled while he washed whatever else was in the sink. “You up for thirds?” he asks, looking over his shoulder to the winged fellow. Keith shakes his head, taking the once-again-empty bowl over and offering to wash it. “No, I’m fine. Thanks.”

 

Lance insisted on washing the bowl. Something about him being his guest and he the host. That still didn’t mean Keith was just gonna leave all the work to him, though, he’s not gonna be a guest that loathes around.

 

Here, in this Bog, Keith couldn’t tell what time it was or what day it is. The constant fog and dark looming trees blocked out sunlight and moonlight alike, stars hidden over the surface of floor-bound clouds and tall born trees. It’s been at least two hours since he woke up, since then he’s gotten much better and gotten more way more talkative with Lance, a certain feeling of security and starvation of affection curled deep in Keith.

 

Keith watched the fog wave by and the bog occasionally burp bubbles, eyes intent on the scene outside but brain going to other places. Wondering where he’ll search next, what will happen next, what will he _do_ next. One thing’s for sure is that he needs to be more damn careful, and another thing is that he owes Lance one, but how will he repay him? He can offer him his help in anything while he stays here, it’s the most he can do in the meantime while he finds a better way to repay the kindness.

 

Lance had come up behind Keith and set a hand on his shoulder, gently clasping the form there made something stir in the pit of his chest, giving Keith more questions than answers. He turns around to see Lance way closer than he’s used to, his mellow look sending warmth up his cheeks. In the midst of waking up in a completely strange place having just snapped out of a coma, it didn’t click into Keith how attractive the other is until this very moment. This is not the time for a gay crisis, but apparently it was, his brain and heart decided.

 

Keith coughs, but smiles warmly. “What’s the matter?”

 

“Since you’re not too familiar with the other mythical and folklore creatures like ourselves, I figured I’d gift you this book explaining some of the majority.” he held over a book bound in reddish brown leather, spine silver and metal. “This is just Vol. 1, however. Sadly, I don’t have copies of the rest.”

Keith nods dumbly, taking the leather book from his hands to cradle it on his own, hovering the object over his lap. He flips the book to read what its title was, and engraved in golden paint worn down by time, it read _The Myths And Beasts Of Our World - VOL. 1._ This looked pretty antique, why was Lance giving him this? Sure he implied he had a copy, but it still didn’t explain why though. “Are you sure you wanna give me this?”  
  
“I can’t exactly send you back out there knowing you didn’t even know what a Boglum was, now, can I?” Lance elaborated. “Plus, you’re a curious little dragon. It seems like research is right up your alley, and I decided I wanna give you an encouraging push.”

 

Appreciating the sentiment, Keith shoots another warm (but awkward) smile and ducks his head down, slim fingers pushing the cover of the book open to see what was inside. “Th-Thanks, by the way,” he murmurs, not missing Lance’s content hum as he took a seat besides him by the window. He filed through the papers, getting a glimpse of the rough portraits and sketches on the surface.

 

Somewhere in the middle of the book, a sketch caught his eye, he started to flip the papers backwards. The names of each creature was in alphabetical order, so when he got to the N, he found the creature from the bog.

 

Opening the book on the page, the right top corner read  _Nokken_ and listed its other name variations in other languages. The sketch he first saw was drawn on the page to his right, showing off an elegant horse with no color. To the sides near the inner spine of the book it portrayed smaller sketches of the Nokken misshaping itself in a bundle of body horror, once revealing what it actually is, then the left page completely dedicated itself to a full on colored drawing of the Nokken’s real appearance. It was as if an aquatic, humanoid, shadowed canine with a long snout hid its face and body under a foliage of leaves, eyes big and round and distant, glowing in a complete white abyss and staring into the beholder’s soul. Keith didn’t know whether to be frightened or amazed, so he kept on with his curiosity.

 

 _“The Neck, Nicor, Nixie or Nokken are shapeshifting Water Spirits in Germanic Mythology and Folklore who usually appear in forms of other creatures..”_ Keith recited, enthralled by the new beast’s information in his formerly limited world. “ _Under a variety of names, they were common to the stories of all Germanic peoples, although they are perhaps best known in Scandinavian folklore.”_ the further Keith read, the more uneasy Lance appeared, but it went over him.

 

Keith learned some of these Nokkens would lure people in and drown them, meanwhile others wouldn’t. They all seemed to vary on what they do and what didn’t do. He’d have to read further to discover more about it but for now he closed the book, taking a deep breath, as if all questions in the universe had been answered. “That thing. That was what the thing I saw when I passed out. The Nokken.”  
  
Keith looked up to see Lance worrying away at bottom his lip, making him worry himself. “Did you.. see or fight the Nokken when you found me?”  
  
“I guess you could say that.” Lance smiled an awkward smile, mirroring Keith’s from earlier. “I _am_ that Nokken.”  
  
Keith's wings perked and shot open, shocked.  “You’re _what_ now?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more cliffhangers 'cause

**Author's Note:**

> wonder who could that Nokken be??? (it's obvs i'm not fooling anyone)
> 
> for those curious: The Nokken are shapeshifting Water Spirits from Mythological Folklore, usually appearing in forms of other creatures. from what I've read about them, some lure humans in and drag them under the surface of the water, and others are not portrayed to do so.
> 
> also i don't think bogs are even that deep but shhh pls amuse me


End file.
